RICHARD CORY:
DID YOU KNOW. . . ?

In the mid-1960s, folk music duo Simon and Garfunkel adapted this poem to a song. The album it is on also contains their song “We’ve Got a Groovy Thing Goin’ On,” adapted from one of Edward Arlington Robinson’s lesser-known poems.

In earlier generations there was a literary theory that Richard Cory was, in fact, gay, because he was slim and dressed well, had disposable income, and nobody would talk to him. That theory has come to be seen as crude stereotyping in recent decades. Contemporary literary critics think Cory might have been a Muslim.

At the time this poem was written, the Panic of 1893 had thrown America into a severe economic depression: hundreds of banks and thousands of businesses failed, and the unemployment in some parts of the country reached over 40%. Bad as it was, however, nobody thought to name it “The Great Depression,” so who cares?

Because of the popularity of this poem, Robinson released a line of body glitter in 1901, a century before similar products caught on. Robinson brewed it up in his basement and sold jars of it, with his picture on them, at poetry readings. It was made with tincture of cocaine and caused skin cancer.

After Edward Arlington Robinson’s death, papers found in his study suggested that he was working on a poem called “Richard Cory II,” in which Cory’s son, who was raised at a boarding school in Switzerland, returns home, meets the townspeople, and also kills himself.